Biography of Manuel Cálix Herrera
He was born in Olancho (1903). He died in Juticalpa in 1939. He was the first Secretary General of the National Directorate of the Communist Party of Honduras. In the banana plantations of the North Coast he organized the Bloque Obrero y Campesino, founding the newspaper El Martillo.
In June 1932 he was launched as a candidate for the country’s Presidency by the Peasant Workers Bloc, accompanied by Celso Jiménez Bonilla to the Vice Presidency. In Víctor Meza’s opinion, «The candidacy of Cálix Herrera and Jiménez Bonilla was perhaps one of the most direct and politically audacious actions that the Honduran communists put into practice at that time. Bear in mind that this electoral formula… Arose at that time. in which the Honduran labor movement entered a phase of ebb, determined by the conjunctural situation that existed in the years 1930-32.
He was part of the Executive Committee of the Honduran Trade Union Federation (FSH), founded on May 1, 1929. He organized several workers’ strikes on the plantations of North American fruit companies, including those of 1932 against United Fruit and Standard Fruit and Steamship Co., which earned him arrest and confinement in the Bay Islands.
Daniel Canales Palencia expressed himself as follows: «Authentic son of the working class … One of the precursors of the labor movement. Graciela Amaya de García affirmed:» His work as a revolutionary militant is a lesson in struggle for the benefit of workers and peasants. Militant upright, extraordinary. »
He was the author of the Truth booklet. Tela, La Marina, sf, in which it indicates it is proposed to «explain to the workers the justice of the socialist cause, which we have always defended,» as well as the essay «Frente a dos Imperialismos», which appeared in several issues of El Martillo (from Year I, No. 11, June 2, 1929 to year I, No. 15, July 28, 1929) and various newspaper articles including: «Stingray stores, our misery… And broken glass» ( El Martillo, year I No. 13, July 20, 1929) and «A banana orchard and a commercial colony» (El Martillo, year I, No. 16, July 5, 1929).
